Greater Sand Plover at Redcar

I've not had many chances to see Greater Sand Plovers in the last ten years and I missed one due to Covid but when news came in of one at Redcar in Cleveland I got twitchy. Friday was out due to Grandad duties, Saturday was out thanks to my brother donating a ticket to see Arsenal v Fulham and Sunday was out due to the Jims having prior commitments so the Bank holiday Monday was our first realistic opportunity to travel and travel we did setting off at 4am we had a very smooth journey covering the 250 miles in four hours.

Herts birder Simon W was walking back having set off much earlier and put us in the right direction as we walked a few hundred yards from the car park to the gathered twitchers and toggers. The bird showed well but was challenging to frame with my little 400mm lens and as such the images a little disappointing. The 400mm gives me a similar view to my x8 binoculars but the views through the x50 scope were fantastic.

South Gore

Greater Sand Plover

Greater Sand Plover and Herring Gull

Greater Sand Plover

Greater Sand Plover

Little Ringed Plover with the Greater Sand Plover

The Greater Sand and Ringed Plover

Greater Sand Plover on the tide line

GSP

GSP

GSP

GSP

Sanderling

Sanderling

Desert  Plover by the sea

Typical view when we arrived

GSP

GSP

After about an hour watching the bird with around fifty others we all starting to scan both the shoreline and the sea. I picked up a very distant bird which was probably a Bonxie but too distant to be sure. There were a few Gannets and Fulmars passing by along with lots of Common and Sandwich Terns among the Gulls. On the shoreline Sanderling and Ringed Plover were the dominant species but we also picked out Whimbrel, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Dunlin, Redshank, Knot, Turnstone and Oystercatcher.

Whilst enjoying the distraction the Plover flew and remarkably nobody saw it go so we had no idea which direction to move. I chose to walk the full length of the beach heading north west towards South Gore picking up two very distant probable Arctic Skua but little else of note save quite a large Sanderling roost.

I walked back joined the Jims again and we walked towards the Bandstand searching again for the plover only to connect again here. Again we enjoyed good views but a little too far for my camera. A couple of toggers moved in for closer images but with a crowd of about a hundred now gathered I resisted the urge to get closer and enjoyed the bird with the crowd. There was some "discussion" with one particular togger who people thought was too close but he stood his ground and remained half way between the bird and the main group of others watching. Him being close wasn't an issue for the bird but if everybody had joined him I guess the bird would have been less comfortable with a hundred people setting the same boundary. We left with the bird still happily feeding.

Just up the road is South Gore were I'd previously visited and enjoyed great views of a Pom Skua and some Roseatte Terns so I took the Jims up there to see the area. We had a brief look for the Red-backed Shrike but with people on site saying they'd been looking for hours with no sign we moved over the road to scan the beach. We picked out a few Little Terns feeding in an isolated inlet for a nice bonus year tick and a local put us onto our first Curlew Sandpiper of the year. 

The journey home took an extra hour due to delays getting through the A1M at Leeds where a festival had created issues but after that the journey was straight forward.

Life list now 434

Year list now 233